Painting
by SBchan
Summary: “My life’s wish is to paint the most beautiful thing for me. If I tell Atobe, I won’t be able to paint that anymore.” Waltz Pair YukiAto hinted Tango SanaAto . Much OOC-ness, Character death...


I (S-chan) and B-chan rushed this...B-chan wasn't able beta this since she didn't have net. So in result, that task was given to me. I edited it a bit, but there are still flaws. I was going to get rid of the typos and stuff, but alas, my PoT addiction was replcaed by Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Oh well, this is our first fanfic anyways...Flames are welcome. Can't seem to care anymore...

WARNINGS: OOC-ness (lots of it), epic typos...and a talkative Sanada.

--

**Painting**

"Really Yukimura! You return from the States only to paint?"

Yukimura distanced the phone's speakers from his ear as Atobe's whiny voice boomed out from it.

"Atobe, what I'm painting is really important to me," Yukimura explained.

"More important than ore-sama and your other friends!?" The diva retorted.

"No need to shout Atobe…" Yukimura said and then inched his phone away further from his abused ear again.

"Agh! You leave ore-sama here with Sanada in this rotten university to run off to America for a year when you know that your best friend's as interesting as a brick wall! I mean, can you imagine living in the same room with him for a damn year! Argh! Who's the damn idiot who made it a policy that all students who study in this damn school should stay in the damn dorms? "

Yukimura smiled to himself as he listened to his friend rant. His smile got even wider when he heard another familiar voice say, "Hey, I'm more interesting than a brick wall!" and "I want to talk to Yukimura too."

"Well, Atobe, I have to go now," Yukimura meekly said and put down the receiver before the other could say anything.

Yukimura's smile slowly faded into a frown as he took his paintbrush and stared to make fine strokes on his canvas. He had to hurry. After all, he had to leave again in a month.

--

"Are you sure you don't want to tell Atobe, Yukimura?"

"Yes, Genichirou," Yukimura softly replied while focusing his sad eyes towards the window. "My life's wish is to paint the most beautiful thing for me. If I tell Atobe, I won't be able to paint that anymore."

"Yukimura…"

"Genichirou, you know what to do with the painting when the time comes. Please take care of everything for me," Yukimura whispered.

Yukimura's hand gripped the paintbrush harder as a lone tear dripped down from his eye. Sanada could only watch as the other suffered in silence.

After some time, Sanada stood up to leave. As he was about to exit the studio, Yukimura stopped him.

"He's very fragile, Genichirou" Yukimura whispered sadly to Sanada. "I know I'll break him…So please, put back the pieces together when he does."

"Don't worry, I will. I promise."

--

Atobe huffed as he looked at the clock. It read 5:45. Sanada's late and he found it odd. The ex-buchou of Rikkai usually retired to their dorm room before 5:00. In fact the other had been acting odd ever since Yukimura disappeared to God-knows-where again. Atobe knew that Sanada knew why Yukimura left, but unfortunately, the stoic man wouldn't even budge whenever he would ask about it.

He also noticed that Sanada kept on giving him sad or pitying glances whenever he thought he wasn't looking. He's also more tolerating and less strict to the silver-haired man. Atobe even once annoyed the other on purpose just to get a reaction from him, but Sanada didn't even seem bothered.

Atobe sighed and decided to get dinner. As soon as he stood up, someone opened the door.

"Sanada," Atobe said with mild surprise.

"Please sit down, Atobe," Sanada softly ordered, while avoiding eye contact. "There's something you need to know."

Atobe, noticing something was off, sat down. He also noticed that the Sanada was carrying a large flat rectangular box.

Sanada sat down on a chair opposite to Atobe. He sighed and shuffled a bit, unable to find the right words to say.

"Oi, don't tell me to listen to you when you have nothing to say," Atobe irritably said.

Sanada sighed again and finally looked at Atobe in the eye. He handed the package to him and monotonously said, "Yukimura wanted you to have this."

Atobe, intrigued, silently took the package and then carefully ripped the corner part of the paper wrapper. His eyes widened when he saw the exposed part of the item. It was a painting. Atobe looked up at Sanada and everything clicked together. Yukimura gave him the painting he worked so hard on.

"Where is he?" Atobe asked desperately. Sanada just looked away, clearly knowing who the "he" Atobe was talking about.

Irritated, Atobe grabbed Sanada by the colar. "Where is he?!" he demanded again. He looked at the other in the eye and he immediately knew that the answer to his question wasn't favorable.

Sanada carefully removed Atobe's hand from his shirt and simply replied, "He left Atobe. He's gone."

"If he went to the States again, I'm going to have my men search for him there!" Atobe firmly said. He picked up his cell phone and began dialing but Sanada took it from his grasp.

"Give it back!" Atobe demanded while trying to retrieve the phone from Sanada's strong grip.

"Stop it Atobe! Yukimura's dead!"

Sanada's words echoed inside Atobe's mind before they finally sunk in. His angry expression turned into a dazed one while his legs felt like jelly and he would have fallen to the floor had Sanada not been there to support him.

"Yukimura left the country last year because he was ill," Sanada sadly told the other as he sat the stunned man down a small sofa. "He wanted to fight his sickness so he sought for the best doctors abroad…All of the doctors he talked to said that what he had was incurable."

"Why…Why didn't he tell me?" Atobe slowly asked as his eyes started to brim with tears.

"Yukimura knew that he might not be cured. He just didn't want you to worry," Sanada replied. "He returned here because his doctors told him that he only had one month left to live. He wanted to spend his last moments near the people he cared about…"

Sanada looked at the package and continued, "Yukimura told me that one of his life's missions is to make a painting of the most beautiful thing for him." He then picked up the package and added, "This is that painting. Open it."

Atobe took the package and fumbled with the tear he made earlier. He tore the rest of the paper and was immediately surprised by the paining.

It was a beautiful picture of an ethereal-looking boy, sleeping serenely under a sakura tree and surrounded by sakura petals and butterflies. The boy in the painting was Atobe.

"It's me…" Atobe murmured.

"The painting features you during the first time he saw you," Sanada explained. "Of course, you wouldn't remember since you were asleep."

Atobe's fingers brushed the back of the canvas and felt something. He looked at the back and found a folded piece of paper wedged at the canvas' frame. He opened it and found out that it was a letter. Tears streamed from his eyes as he read its contents.

Sanada, while sadly watching the other cry, remembered Yukimuras words, "He's fragile. I know I'll break him…So please put back the pieces together when he does." Remembering his promise, he took the sobbing man into his arms.

'I'll put the pieces back together, Yukimura.'

Atobe cried harder and buried his face in Sanada's shirt. Yukimura's message…no, his confession kept on repeating in his head…

_Keigo,_

_Good bye. I love you._

_-Seiichi_


End file.
